Last summer, they squared off against Facebook over the platform’s political news policy. Now, the New York Times has quietly paused its Snapchat channel. What’s up with that?

“The Times’ most recent edition is dated Dec. 21, 2018,” writes Kerry Flynn in Digiday. “The publisher launched on Snapchat on April 24, 2017 — about seven weeks after Snap’s Wall Street debut — and had been sharing newspaper and magazine stories as well as a miniature version of the crossword on the platform. The Times had 20 people across the company help with the launch of the channel, after which it had a team of about 10 managing it. The Times declined to provide a specific reason for stopping its channel.”

It’s not unheard of for big media names to take a pause on the platform, Flynn reminds us.

“For example, CNN stopped publishing on Snapchat in December 2017. The news network was one of Discover’s launch partners back in January 2015. It switched to doing a Snapchat Show called “The Update” in mid-2018. But after four months, it chose to cancel the effort. In September 2018, CNN rejoined Snapchat as one of the launch partners for Curated Our Stories, its breaking news tool.”

An unnamed spokesperson for Snap said they are having “ongoing conversations” with the Times.

“The New York Times is an incredible partner and an important source of news for our community, especially in this unprecedented political climate. We’re currently working with their team on the next evolution of the New York Times on Snapchat. We’re excited to reimagine what the NYT can be on Snapchat and look forward to sharing more details when we’re ready,” the Snap spokesperson said.

It remains to be seen when or if the Times will start posting on Snapchat Discover again, and what kind of revenue model might be in place. We’ll keep you posted.